People have been interested in the living organisms around them since ancient times. To study them helped such a science as zoology. How did it arise and at what stage of development is it now?
Ancient knowledge
The history of the development of science "zoology" is rooted in ancient times. Already before our era, people were able to accumulate a sufficient amount of knowledge about what role animals can play, how they are arranged and connected. The beginning of science can be considered the work of Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist. He wrote works “On the parts of animals” and other works on the history and origin of organisms, where he described 452 species. He also owns significant discoveries about the structure of living organisms. Another outstanding scientist was Pliny the Elder, who created the multi-volume “Natural History”. In this book he gave descriptions of all animals known to mankind at that time. It was the best treatise that science of zoology could use then.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
During the time of feudalism, Europe was very fragmented, and religion dominated society, which hindered the development of any sciences. Therefore, a brief history of the development of zoology describes this period as a moment of absolute stagnation. No new discoveries and significant works have been written; almost no one has studied animals. The situation changed a lot during the Renaissance. Listing the main stages in the development of zoology, one cannot but mention the period when famous travelers, such as Magellan, Columbus and Marco Polo, allowed scientists to greatly enrich their knowledge by bringing information about creatures from distant continents previously unknown to Europeans. The revival was a time of accumulation of knowledge, which required further systematization.
Heyday
The next period that the science of zoology survived was the time of generalization of existing knowledge about the fauna of different parts of the planet. The most prominent in this regard was the Swiss scientist Hesper, who wrote an extensive encyclopedia "The History of Animals."
In the seventeenth century, a microscope was invented. A brief history of the development of zoology marks this moment as one of the most significant. Scientists were able to discover a new world of the smallest organisms, as well as to study the subtlest structures of multicellular organs. The Dutch naturalist Levenguk, who created the four-volume “Secrets of Nature Discovered With a Microscope”, stands out especially in this field. It was he who discovered the existence of ciliates, studied the red blood cells and muscle tissue of animals. Another serious scientist of those times was the Italian Malyshgi, who described the circulatory system and capillaries of vertebrates, thoroughly studying the excretory organs and integuments of various species.
The emergence of new industries
A brief history of the development of zoology will be incomplete without a description of the period that marked the beginning of many modern branches of science. Until the eighteenth century, such sections as animal taxonomy and paleontology, dealing with the study of minerals, arose. An incredible development occurred in the field of physiology, where scientists Servet and Harvey worked, who described in detail the circulatory system. Cuvier developed an important principle of correlation, which explained the relationship of internal organs and the results of exposure to one of them in the context of all the others. His significant works are The Animal Kingdom and Iconography of the Animal Kingdom. The latter included 450 tables and 6,200 figures, which are used in educational literature even now. Another important book is “Reasoning about the coups on the surface of the globe and about the changes that they made.” This work outlined the theory of the distribution of fossils across the layers of the planet.
Darwin's Discoveries
The next period, which includes a brief development of zoology, is the time of studying evolutionary theory and its approval as the basis of all science. People became interested in the ideas of the gradual development of wildlife from the simplest forms of creatures to complex ones. The development of this theory was facilitated not only by Darwin's discoveries, but also by the work of Schwapn and Schleidep, which made it possible to form an idea of the unity of the animal and plant world. Another prominent scientist was Lamarck. He developed the taxonomy proposed by Linnaeus and carefully studied the world of invertebrates. The work “Philosophy of Zoology”, which saw the light in 1809, became one of the most important in his career - in it the scientist refuted the metaphysical views that animals always remain unchanged, and holistically presented the theory of evolution, during which organisms are transformed under the influence of external and internal processes. Timiryazev considered this theory to be one of the most comprehensive, therefore it can be safely added to the list of important periods that make up the main stages of development of zoology.
Modern period
The brief history of the development of zoology ends with the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This is the time of the emergence of new technologies for studying the subject, global discoveries and the strong branching of science. The development of zoology is directly related to the growth of agriculture and animal husbandry, hunting and other similar areas. In addition, there is an interest in protecting human health. At the moment, humanity owns a huge amount of factual and theoretical information. The process of further obtaining data goes through the creation of well-equipped zoological expeditions that are sent to remote areas of the planet. No less significant are works at the molecular and genetic level, as well as works studying the animal world from the point of ecological safety and health. The problems of eating meat, experiments with the cloning and modification of DNA chains, as well as breeding of agricultural species that lead to environmental pollution, concern scientists in the first place. Therefore, the prospects for further development should be connected precisely with these issues, which definitely will not lose relevance for the scientific community in the next few decades.